KAREN QUINCY LOBERG/THE STAR File
Roger Durling is animated introducing his guests Martin Scorsese and Leonard Maltin at the Arlington in this file photo of the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Ventura County Star

It felt like Roger Durling was the poker player holding the high cards at his annual news conference Tuesday morning to announce the lineup for the upcoming Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Durling, the festival’s executive director and head for the past 11 years, came armed with some 200 films, including 22 world and 33 U.S. premieres, for the festival’s 29th edition, which runs Jan. 30 to Feb. 9.

He’s also got two silent weapons to combat the Feb. 2 Super Bowl, film programs for family and kids, and arguably the best overall lineup of celebrity honorees in the event’s history — a notion he didn’t try hard to dispel.

“If you are a film lover of any kind,” Durling told The Star later, “there is something in this festival that will please you. And there’s more than just one thing that you can like about the festival. Our range is so far — high brow and low brow and everything in between.”

Of course it helps to have Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Emma Thompson and Oprah Winfrey up anyone’s sleeve. Those are the previously announced celebrity honorees this year; another star will join them to fill the open Jan. 31 slot, an announcement that could be made by next week.

All of them are solid contenders for the Oscar nominations that will be announced Jan. 16. Durling said flatly that Blanchett will win the best actress Oscar for her turn in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” when the prized golden statuettes are handed out on March 2, saying later, “That one is in the bag.”

The best actor race, he opined, is between Redford for “All Is Lost,” Chiwetel Ejiofor of “12 Years a Slave” and Matthew McConaughey for “Dallas Buyers Club.”

Getting the legendary Redford to come to Santa Barbara, Durling said, “is very humbling.” Redford turned them down a few times, just as Daniel Day-Lewis did before he agreed to come last year. “He’s a very modest man,” Durling said of Redford. “To get up and be celebrated is kind of hard for him.”

The best film race, he said, is wide open. He declined to peg a favorite, saying that it’s been a good year for cinema.

Durling called the polarizing Scorsese-DiCaprio film “The Wolf of Wall Street” amazing, adding, “You think Scorsese is not relishing the controversy? ... All of his films have been ahead of their time.”

Blanchett will receive the festival’s Outstanding Performer of the Year Award on Feb. 1, Winfrey will get the Montecito Award on Feb. 5, Scorsese and DiCaprio are tag-team Cinema Vanguard Award honorees on Feb. 6, Redford will be feted with the American Riviera Award on Feb. 7, and Thompson will receive the Modern Master Award, the festival’s highest honor, on Feb. 8.

The festival also will hand out Virtuosos Awards to a group of seven actors on Feb. 4. All the tributes are at 8 p.m. at the Arlington Theatre, 1317 State St.

In other highlights:

n The opening night film (8 p.m., Jan. 30) is “Mission Blue,” a Robert Nixon-Fisher Stevens documentary about renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle. The world premiere will be shown at the Arlington.

n The Feb. 9 closing night event, previously announced, is the “Before” trilogy from director Richard Linklater and co-stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. The first two films, “Before Sunrise” (1995) and “Before Sunset” (2004) will be shown at the Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St. The 2013 capper “Before Midnight” will close the festival at the Arlington, and will feature a post-screening question-and-answer session with Linklater, Delpy and Hawke.

n The festival will screen two silent films at the Arlington on Super Bowl Sunday — “The Thief of Bagdad,” a 1924 film starring Douglas Fairbanks and directed by Raoul Walsh, at 4 p.m., followed by a 7:30 p.m. screening of the 1927 film “Wings,” which holds the distinction of being the first film to win the best picture Oscar.

n A new fifth panel on visual effects, featuring the people who put together “Gravity” and other films, will be held at 4 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Lobero Theatre. It joins the traditional four panels on producers (11 a.m. Feb. 1), women in Hollywood (2 p.m. Feb. 1), screenwriters (11 a.m. Feb. 8) and directors (2 p.m. Feb. 8). All those will be held at the Lobero.

n The annual free “Mike’s Field Trip to the Movies” for Santa Barbara County schoolchildren is on Feb. 6 at the Arlington, featuring the animated film “Frozen” and its director Jennifer Lee. The event is named for the late Mike deGruy, a renowned nature cinematographer and festival driving force.

n Another returnee is the free Apple Box family films on the Feb. 1-2 and Feb. 8-9 festival weekends. The featured films are “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2,” “Despicable Me 2,” and “Monsters University.”

*For tickets, schedules and other information, check out www.sbfilmfestival.org or call the festival office at 963-0023.